The Origins of Civilization in Mesoamerica: A Geographic Perspective Vincent H. Malmström Department of Geography Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 03755 In earlier papers, I presented my hypothesis on the origin of the 260-day Mesoamerican sacred calendar at Izapa in southernmost Mexico, demonstrating how the astronomical, geographical, and historical evidence converge on this site on the Pacific coastal plain of Chiapas (Malmström 1973). My presentation included a reconstruction of the calendar's chronology dating back to the fourteenth century B.C., using evidence internal to the sacred and secular calendars themselves (Malmström 1978), and an explanation of its subsequent diffusion throughout Mesoamerica as evidenced in urban and architectural alignments, citing their repeated orientation to the sunset position on August 13, the day on which the Mayas believed the present age of the world began and on which the zenithal sun passes overhead at Izapa (Malmström 198 1). Although I have won support for my basic thesis from physical scientists (Chiu and Morrison 1980), 1 am nevertheless mindful that my arguments run counter to the accepted views of most archaeologists. The latter believe that because the 0lmecs -- the mother culture of Mesoamerica -- have had their presence more clearly identified along the Gulf coast region of Mexico, it is from this so-called 0lmec metropolitan area that the principal cultural innovations of the New World emanated. (For a summary of current views on cultural origins in Mesoamerica, see Bemal 1969, and Coe and Diehl 1980.) In this paper, therefore, I seek to fit the sacred calendar into the broader physical and cultural context of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and, in so doing, to demonstrate the need for reexamining the conventional wisdom on the subject of the geographic origins of civilization in this region. WHO WERE THE OLMECS?
Central to any discussion of cultural origins in Mesoamerica is an answer to the question, "Who were the Olmecs?" An increasing body of evidence, much of it admittedly circumstantial, suggests that their modem descendants may be found among the Mixe-Zoque-Popoluca peoples of southern Mexico. (See Ochoa and Lee 1983; Lowe 1977.) This conclusion stems both from an analysis of linguistic patterns and from a study of early pottery types. This evidence tends, moreover, to confirm another hypothesis regarding the evolution of stone sculpture in Mesoamerica, namely, that the most primitive forms stem from the Pacific versant, while at the same time it argues for the importance of the Izapa region as a major cultural hearth within the New World. The physical-geographic context also supports these theories on the origins of the 0lmecs.
THE PHYSICAL SETTING
That part of Mesoamerica that Bernal (1969) and others have termed the 0lmec metropolitan area is centered in the Gulf coastal plain of southern Veracruz and adjacent Tabasco. It is in this region that the most extensive alluvial lowlands of Mesoamerica are found, the latter being the result of the heaviest concentration of precipitation anywhere in Mexico. Moisture-laden winds blowing in off the Gulf meet the steep walls of the uplands fewer than 100 km inland and, as a consequence, this east-facing mountain-front receives more than 2000 mm of rainfall per year. The low latitude of this region, combined with its low elevation and heavy precipitation, insure that its vegetation is in most parts high tropical forest of the broadleaf evergreen variety. Even so, there is a marked seasonal variation in rainfall within the region, so that the volume of water carried by the rivers may vary by as much as tenfold between May (at the end of the dry season) and September (at the peak of the rainy season). Indeed, changes in river levels of the magnitude of 10 meters are not uncommon, and, in this region of minimal relief, widespread flooding results in the creation of extensive swamps. It is, in short, a region of high temperatures, high humidity, and rampant vegetation growth. Its soils are riverine deposits of silt and alluvium--a region totally devoid of bedrock. Its climate ranges from tropical-humid to super humid in the windward uplands (fig. 1).
Rising out of the Gulf coastal plain in southern Veracruz and almost entirely encircled by it is the volcanic massif known as the Tuxtlas--a cluster of cinder cones and small stratovolcanoes, none of which exceeds 1500 meters in height. Opening southward from the Gulf coastal plain is the structural lowland known as the Tehuantepec Gap--the only place in Meso-America where it is possible to cross between the two oceans at an elevation of scarcely 300 meters. Indeed, apart from the low hills that form the continental divide near the southern, side of the Isthmus, the Gulf coastal plain is virtually continuous with that bordering the Pacific. The latter, however, is quickly pinched out to the west by the Sierra Madre del Sur in Oaxaca but continues as a narrow fringe along the Pacific margin of Chiapas on into Guatemala where it broadens out to a width of some 50 km (fig. 2).
Although topographically an extension of the Gulf coastal plain, the Pacific lowland may be divided into two quite distinct climatic and vegetation regions. Once the height of land is crossed from the Gulf, the dense rainforests of the north quickly give way to low scrub forests on the south. Here, in the lee of the main mountain barrier of Mesoamerica, the dry season becomes so pronounced that the entire isthmian area warrants a tropical sub-humid designation. However, from Tonalá southward along the coast, the rainfall increases rapidly once again, resulting in a dense tropical rainforest throughout southern Chiapas and adjacent Guatemala. It is this region that was known in pre-Columbian times as Soconusco, prized among the ancients as the source of cacao, rubber, and quetzal feathers. Thus, while it is climatically very similar to the Gulf plain, Soconusco had a special importance, thanks to its wealth of exotic trade items. Moreover, lying as it does on the flanks of both ancient crystalline and younger volcanic mountains-the dividing line between the two formations occurs almost precisely along the present political boundary between Mexico and Guatemala--Soconusco was likewise blessed with an abundance of stone that was used both for construction and artistic purposes (fig. 3).
Rugged mountain massifs rise on either side of the Tehuantepec Gap, the one to the west culminating in Zempoaltepec (3395 meters) near the northeastern comer of Oaxaca, and the one to the east rising in ever-higher ridges into the heart of Chiapas. In both mountain areas, patterns of climate and vegetation change dramatically with elevation and exposure, varying from cool, moist uplands covered with oak and pine forests to' sub-humid interior valleys where both steppe grasses and prickly pear cactus are prevalent. In both mountain areas there is likewise a striking transition in geologic age and complexity from north to south, with the younger, least disturbed sedimentary formations nearer the Gulf coast and the older, more jumbled crystalline outcrops in close proximity to the Pacific. Thus, in contrast to the essential simplicity of the physical patterns of the lowlands of southern and eastern Meso-America, the mountain areas of the region are characterized by great local diversity. ALTERNATIVE SCENARIOS OF SETTLEMENT IN SOUTHERN MESOAMERICA
Given the character of the physical setting of southern Meso-America, it is easy to appreciate that the movement of people, goods, and ideas within the region has usually taken the path of least resistance, that is, along the Gulf and Pacific coastal plains and through the Tehuantepec Gap between them. Despite the fact that the largest rivers of the region all flow toward the Gulf and that the continental divide lies far closer to the Pacific than it does to the Gulf, there are no easy approaches from the Gulf to the highlands either of Oaxaca on the west or of Chiapas in the east. This is because the rivers of the region are antecedent streams that have breached the uplifted mountain massifs in spectacular canyons. The Grijalva River, for example, has incised to a depth of more than 1200 meters. Thus, approaches to the interior mountain areas are actually easier from the Pacific side, with the valley of the Tehuantepec River affording a route of penetration to within 20 krn of the great interior valley of Oaxaca, while a couple of passes break through the lower western ridges of the Sierra Madre into the central depression of Chiapas. Before examining the actual evidence for cultural diffusion within southern Mesoamerica, one might be tempted to postulate a theoretical scenario for such movement based on what is known of the geographic foundations of Olmec civilization. Judging from the character of Bernal's metropolitan area, the Olmecs were a people thoroughly at home in a humid tropical environment. Had they wanted to expand their settlement into areas with similar physical conditions, they might have done so either by moving westward along the Gulf coast into central Veracruz or eastward into Tabasco and Campeche. However, even the most cursory reconnaissance southward across the Tehuantepec Gap would have brought them face to face with the sub-humid, scrub forest environment of the Pacific coastal plain of Oaxaca--an area quite unlike that in which their civilization supposedly took root. The incentive for undertaking such a radical move would have had to be compelling at the very least. (This is not to suggest that Olmec influences did not penetrate into regions of very dissimilar physical geography, for they
are found, for example, in such sub humid areas as the central valley of Oaxaca at Monte Albán and in the highlands of Morelos at Chalcatzingo. However, no evidence of Olmec settlement has ever been found in the scrub-forest regions of southern Tehuantepec-, fig. 4).
For the sake of argument, were we to postulate a scenario that has the Olmecs originating in the humid tropical environment of Soconusco and adjacent Guatemala and then spreading out from there, we would find the extent of suitable land far more restricted, both for reasons of topography and climate. Indeed, as a result, population pressures would more quickly have convinced them of the need for seeking out other humid tropical niches of the kind with which they were familiar. On the Pacific coastal plain, this type of environment extends from northwestern Nicaragua across present-day El Salvador and Guatemala into southern Mexico as far as the entrance to the Tehuantepec Gap. There, as indicated above, the climate becomes markedly drier and the vegetation becomes scrub, but, ironically, not without the promise of more attractive lands beyond: Anyone who reaches the entrance to the Tehuantepec Gap from the south cannot miss seeing the towering build-up of cumulus clouds across the Gap to the north. One responding to this invitation and venturing through the Gap would find himself in the midst of a verdant lowland far more extensive than anything he had yet encountered. Whether this scenario is valid or not, it is an interesting geographic fact that the earliest identifiable Olmec ceremonial center is that at San Lorenzo, near the northern entrance to the Gap, whereas later centers such as La Venta and Tres Zapotes are both located farther to the east and west, respectively, in the Gulf coastal plain proper (fig. 5).
THE EVOLUTION OF CULTURAL PATTERNS IN SOUTHERN MESOAMERICA
A comparative study of pottery types has always been one of the diagnostic tools most used by archaeologists to determine relationships between culture areas, so it is fitting that we first examine the evidence relating to this trace element. According to Thomas Lee of the New World Archaeological Foundation, the earliest pottery found at San Lorenzo has unquestioned antecedents in the Ocós phase found along the Pacific coast of Soconusco (personal communication 1983; also see Coe and Diehl 1980; Lowe 1977). Moreover, Lee points out that the white-rimmed black pottery common to both areas has come to be recognized as characteristic of the Zoque peoples who currently inhabit the northwestern sector of Chiapas. (We will return to this link to the Zoque group in another context later on.) Interestingly, Pierre Agrinier, also of the New World Archaeological Foundation, notes that the earliest pottery from the Ocós phase is by Fig. 6.
all odds the most sophisticated found anywhere in southern Mesoamerica, while that from San Lorenzo represents a rather less carefully made imitation (personal communication 1983; Cox and Diehl 1980).1 Thus, even if the people responsible for making the pottery did not themselves move from the Pacific coastal plain to the Olmec metropolitan area, there is clear evidence that their knowledge of pottery styles and techniques diffused in that direction (also see Wilkerson and Ortiz 1979, Lowe 1977; fig. 6). (2)
Another diagnostic of cultural diffusion cited by archaeologists such as Ferdon (1953) and Miles (1965, 237-275) is the evolution of stone sculpture within Mesoamerica. Unlike pottery, carved stones cannot be reliably dated. Although the so-called Fat Boys of the Pacific coastal plain of Guatemala may not be as ancient as Graham as assumed (i.e., 2000 B.C.; personal communication 1979), there is little question but that the most primitive examples of the sculptor's art all stem from the Pacific side of Mesoamerica, and especially Soconusco.(3) As indicated earlier, it was in this region that the raw materials, including both granite and basalt, were readily available for carving, unlike the metropolitan area where stone had to be fetched from the Tuxtlas some 60 to 80 km away. In fact, it is very likely that the famous serpentine jaguar mosaics at La Venta were fashioned from stone quarried on the edge of the Pacific coastal plain near Niltepec, more than 200 km to the south, and that as much as 1200 tons of the green rock was transported across the Isthmus for their construction (fig. 7). (4) All along the Pacific foothills of the Sierra Madre from Arriaga in the north to the Guatemalan border in the south one finds large, round, exfoliated granite boulders that may have served as an inspiration for the colossal beads so typical of the Gulf coast metropolitan area. At Iglesia Vieja near Tonalá, for example, are some of the most primitive carved statues in Mesoamerica, yet at the same site are found some of the most impressive stone construction work. Clearly, the Pacific coastal plain of southern Mesoamerica not only provided the raw materials but was also an ideal training ground for developing a tradition of stone working, unlike the metropolitan area, where, because of the lack of stone, it is difficult to imagine any such skill having arisen without outside influence (fig. 8). (5)
Inasmuch as language is one of the most conservative of trace-elements, it might be supposed that whoever the Olmecs were, some idea of their origins might be gained by identifying, the language family to which they belonged. Most linguists have accepted the idea that Mayan languages were spoken along the entire Gulf coast region of Mexico since the earliest Formative times (ca. 1500 B.C.; see fig. 9). (6) Thus, many archaeologists, among them Jiménez Moreno, Thompson, Coe, and Bernal, believed that the Olmecs spoke a Mayan tongue. Lee (1983) observes, however, that there is not a single linguist who thinks the Olmecs spoke Mayan. In this connection, it is interesting to note that Swadesh (1953) dated a split that occurred among the Maya-speaking peoples living along the Gulf coastal plain to some 3200 years ago (ca. 1300 B.C.), which accords very closely to the rise of San Lorenzo in southern Veracruz . (7) At that time it appears that a wedge was driven into the midst of the Maya language area, forcing some of the peoples to the west and northwest to become the Huastecas and the remainder to the east to become the Yucatecs, or Lowland Maya. For such a wedge to have effectively separated a relatively densely settled people suggests that it was far more likely to have been the result of a sustained overland movement from the south (through the Tehuantepec Gap) than it was of a sea borne invasion from the north (fig.10). (8)
Moreover, for some time linguists have recognized the similarity of four languages in southern Mesoamerica, but their current geographic separation has complicated the reconstruction of pre-Columbian language patterns within the region. (9) One of the four
-- Tapachulteco, once spoken in the mountains of Soconusco behind the present-day city of Tapachula -- is now extinct; the other three, while in active retreat before the intensified Hispanicization that is going on as a result of Mexico's economic modernization, are still spoken by approximately 60,000 persons. Of these, the largest group -- slightly morethan half of the total -- are Mixe speakers residing in the rugged mountains of northeastern Oaxaca. The second-largest group -- comprising about onethird of the total -- is the Zoques, who today reside in the mountains of northwestern Chiapas. The final group, the Popoluca, who constitute scarcely one-sixth of the members of the combined Mixe-Zoque-Popoluca language family, inhabit the eastern slopes and foothill region of the Tuxtla Mountains in southern Veracruz.
That the four groups at one time formed a contiguous or continuous geographic pattern is as apparent as the original contiguity of the Maya and Huasteca; however, to link the four groups in any convincing geographic manner would involve a connection along the Pacific coastal plain and through the Tehuantepec Gap -- along precisely the arteries of movement suggested by the diffusion of pottery-making and the postulated diffusion of stone sculpture. That the four peoples came to be so isolated one from the other is easily explained by the subsequent movement of other linguistic groups into or through the same lowland corridors. Perhaps the earliest of these pressures was felt in the seventh century A.D., when Chiapanecs, moving out of the central plateau as Nahuaspeaking Toltecs pushed southward, spread into west-central Chiapas. Apart from giving their name to the state as a whole and providing many local place names, the Chiapanecs appear to have been culturally assimilated by the Zoques in the succeeding centuries. About the same time, or perhaps even earlier, Maya speaking peoples began pressing into the highlands of Chiapas from the northeast, while on the west it is likely that the Zapotecs posed an increasing threat after the eighth century when their Mixtec neighbors became more restive. It remained, however, for the militant Aztecs to reshape the linguistic map of southern Mesoamerica most thoroughly, impressing their Nahua-tongue on subjugated peoples all along the Gulf coastal plain down to the Tehuantepec Gap, across the latter and down the Pacific coast into Soconusco during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries (fig. 11). The latter region was a primary goal of their trading expeditions and, when combined Zapotec-Mixtec resistance closed the southern end of the Tehuantepec Gap in the late fifteenth century, the Aztecs were obliged to open a more
difficult alternative route to Soconusco through the interior of Chiapas and over the Motozintla pass to the Pacific. As a result, anyone caught in the path of these military and commercial advances had little recourse but to retire into refuge areas in the adjacent mountains if they sought to preserve either their economic or cultural independence. Thus, the Popoluca withdrew into the eastern Tuxtlas where they remained the most vulnerable of the three extant groups and suffered the greatest inroads into their numbers. (10) The Zoque retreated into the mountains of northwestern Chiapas, a rugged area of little commercial interest to the Aztecs, hence, of little subsequent cultural disturbance. Such too, was the fate of the Mixe who, from a tropical lowland environment in the San Lorenzo region, found themselves pushed into the oak-and-pine forested uplands (2000 meters high) of northeastern Oaxaca, an area that not even the highland Zapotec seem to have coveted. It is they, then, who are the most numerous, the most aloof, and the most culturally impoverished of the original Mixe-Zoque language family." Their early separation and long-continued isolation from the rest of their linguistic brethren is seen in the fact that scarcely half of the words they use have recognizable equivalents in Zoque or Popoluca, whereas the latter two groups share about two-thirds of their vocabularies in common.12 Although Jiménez Moreno (1942) commented on the correspondence between the distribution of the Zoquean language and Olmec settlement patterns forty years ago, substantial support for any hypothesis linking the two has appeared only in the past decade. Thanks to the convincing linguistic studies of Campbell and Kaufman (1976), and more recently of Stross (1982), there now seems little doubt that the Olmecs were people of Zoquean speech, a conclusion that Lowe (1977) likewise came to after extensive archaeological studies in the Chiapas region. Geographically, there is a strong correlation between the distribution of the Zoquean language on the one hand and the demonstrated diffusion of pottery styles and techniques, the postulated diffusion of stoneworking traditions, and the reconstructed scenario of the expansion of Olmec settlement on the other. Each of the latter trace elements in turn argues more strongly for a movement emanating from the Soconusco region of the Pacific coastal plain and spreading northward through the Tehuantepec Gap into the Olmec metropolitan area than in the opposite direction. This is, of course, the same pattern of movement that I hypothesized earlier for the diffusion of the calendar from Izapa (Malmstr6m 198 1, 260).
Further validation of my Izapa hypothesis has come from recent work carried out by the New World Archaeological Foundation both locally in Izapa and at the newly discovered ceremonial center of El Mirador in northern Guatemala. A re-interpretation of the glyphs on the stelae at Izapa has convinced Gareth Lowe, Director of the New World Archaeological Foundation and one of the excavators of the site, that they are largely calendrical in nature (personal communication, 1983); this comes as belated support for my hypothesis that Izapa was the birthplace of both the 260-day sacred calendar and the 365-day secular calendar, which were adopted and used throughout pre-Columbian Meso-America. Lowe (Lowe et al. 1982) concludes that the astronomical events that the glyphs describe correlate best with a first century A.D. time-frame, which would date them near the end of Izapa's existence rather than toward its beginning. However, when pressed, Lowe conceded that the dates would correlate "perfectly" with the same phenomena one Sothic cycle (i.e., 1461 years) earlier;" this would place them in the fourteenth century B.C., which is precisely the time-frame I postulated for the development of the calendars. Thus, Lowe's work not only argues for the importance of Izapa as a calendrical site, but it also indicates that the chronology of the calendar's origins, as I have reconstructed it, is as logically consistent with my original hypothesis as it is with his. Finally, mapping of El Mirador, a major Maya ceremonial center recently discovered in the jungles of northem Guatemala, clearly shows that the site's largest pyramid is precisely oriented to the setting sun on August 13.1" This alignment, which commemorates the beginning of time for the Maya and the day the sun passes vertically overhead at Izapa to commence its 260-day cycle, has been shown by the author to be present at key sites throughout Meso-America and represents clear evidence of the diffusion of this knowledge from the calendar's birthplace in Soconusco." CONCLUSIONS To recapitulate, in previous publications, I have presented my hypotheses for the sacred calendar's development at the large Formative site of Izapa on the Pacific coastal plain of southern Mexico in the fourteenth century B.C. and described its subsequent diffusion northward through the Tehuantepec Gap into the plateau of Mexico and the Yucatan peninsula. The timing of these calendrical innovations corresponds closely to the founding of San Lorenzo at the northern entrance to the Gap and to the splitting apart of the Maya-speaking peoples inhabiting the Gulf coastal plain. The creation and diffusion of the calendar was paralleled by the development and spread of a special type of pottery that has recently been recognized as diagnostic of the Zoque people. The latter seem to have originally inhabited the Pacific coastal plain of Soconusco and adjacent Guatemala and later to have spread into and through the Tehuantepec Gap, only to be dislodged from this lowland corridor in the last dozen centuries by movements of people coming down off the Mexican plateau. The most distant outliers of Zoqueanspeakers retreated into the eastern foothills of the Tuxtlas to become the Popolucas, while another major group was driven westward into the mountains of Oaxaca to become the Mixe, and the remainder sought refuge in the mountains of Chiapas where they retain their identity as Zoques. There is likewise a strong likelihood that it was this same general movement of people and ideas northward across the Isthmus that was responsible for introducing the tools and techniques of stone sculpture into a region that was totally lacking in local raw materials.
This dispersal seems to have been favored, moreover, both by accidents of climate and terrain that would have been inimical to movement in the opposite direction. It is my conclusion, therefore, that the mysterious Olmecs were in point of fact none other than the forebearers of the present Zoque people, and that it is to them, in their original homeland in Soconusco, that we may trace most of the material and intellectual contributions that paved the way for the rise of civilization in Mesoamerica.
NOTES 1. Coe and Diehl (1980) go so far as to term the earliest pottery found at San Lorenzo "a country version of the far more sophisticated Ocós phase of Guatemalan Soconusco." 2. Wilkerson and Ortiz's (1979) evidence from the Veracruz region suggests three chronological peaks of ceramic activity around 1600, 1400, and 1150 B.C., all linked with the isthmian and Chiapas coasts. For an extended discussion of the diffusion of Ocós pottery see Lowe (1977, 204-212). 3. Stratigraphic evidence associated with similar statues in western El Salvador suggest a dating ca. 500 B.C., although Graham has argued that such sculptures may have been reset and are therefore likely to be far older (see Demarest et al. 1982, 557-571). Noteworthy in this regard are the sculptures found at Tuxtla Chico near the Guatemalan border and those discovered at Tonalá and now housed in its local museum. 4. Bernal (1969, 69) vaguely locates the source of serpentine "between Tehuantepec and Tuxtla Gutiérrez," while Coe and Diehl (1980, 19) identify the site as lying 130 kin south of San Lorenzo. At Niltepec, such rock outcrops along Highway 200. 5. Haberland (1974, 36) comes to much the same conclusions, citing not only the lack of stone but also the necessity for long distance transport that implies an effective social organization in command of surplus labor. 6. A summary of the early language situation will be found in Castañeda (1983, 465467). Note that he mentions the Maya-Huasteca split as having taken place ca. 1800 B.C. Castañeda's language maps (479-481) also differ from figures 9, 10, and 11. 7. Note that in Bernal's citation of Swadesh, he states that the Maya-Huasteca split took place 3200 years ago, but uses 1200 B.C. as an approximation of this event. 8. The thesis that the separation of the Maya and Huasteca can be attributed to a natural disaster, such as an eruption of the volcanoes in the Tuxtlas, is untenable, because this would have coincided with the very time that the Olmecs were supposedly in the area quarrying stone for their colossal heads. The contention that the Olmecs were native to the Tuxtla area and that volcanic eruptions covered up all traces of their antecedent culture is untenable for much the same reason.
9. As early as 1900, Nicholas Leon (1975, 37) recognized that the Zoquean language family included the Mixe and Popoluca tongues. In Sapir's 1929 classification, the nowextinct Tapachulteco and a tongue in neighboring Guatemala (Aguacatec) were also recognized as Zoquean (44). 10. The persistence of rituals involving cacao among the Popoluca people strongly suggests that they migrated from a region where this crop was native, i.e., Soconusco (see Foster 1969,454). 11. The Mixe apparently were obliged to give up much of their material culture, including some of their staple crops, when they migrated into the mountains. See Foster (1969, 458) for comments on Mixe cultural "crudity." Native informants told me in 1983 that "mountain beans" constitute one of the principal staple crops today. 12. A diagnostic word list has been prepared by Swadesh (1975) to facilitate the comparison of various indigenous languages. Using such a word list, my field assistant, Alex de Sherbinin, and I visited each of the extant language groups, i.e., Popoluca, Zoque, and Mixe, and collected sample glossaries upon which the statistical summaries cited here are based. 13. The Sothic cycle takes its name from Sothis, the Egyptian term for Sirius. Because they reckoned 365 days to the year, the Egyptians discovered that when the annual movements of the sun were calibrated against the star Sirius, it "lost" about a quarter of a day each year. Hence, it would take 1461 of their years to equal 1460 true solar years, thus bringing the sun back into precisely the same position with reference to the stars. 14. Alignments measured from site plan prepared by Ian Graham, 1967. 15. Inasmuch as both El Mirador and Teotihuacán date to about 0 A.D., and the dominant structure at the former and the entire layout of the latter appear to commemorate an alignment to the August 13 sunset, it would have been impossible for the sacred calendar -- which supposedly accounts for the significance of such an alignment -- to have arisen as late as the first century A.D. Indeed, with such alignments confirmed as early as 600 B.C. at Monte Albán and possibly as early as 1000 B.C. in La Venta, Lowe's hypothesis is seen to be totally untenable.
(This article was published in the 1985 Yearbook of the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers, Vol. 11, pp. 23-29, editor Lydia Pulsipher. It was re-printed in Spanish in the Anuario del Centro de Estudios Indígenas III (1989-1990) by the Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas .)
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